Does Texas Spend A Third Of Its Budget On Medicaid?

Our weekly check-in with the Texas Truth-O-Meter.

By Alain StephensApril 5, 2017 9:30 am,

Extolling the health care act that Republicans briefly advocated as an improvement on the Obamacare law, Sen. John Cornyn singled out how much Medicaid costs Texas state government.

In March 9, 2017, Senate floor remarks brought to our attention by a reader, the Texas Republican prefaced his claim by saying state and federal governments “spend an awful lot of money on Medicaid,” the federal-state entitlement program providing health coverage to the poor, especially mothers, children and the disabled, which was launched by Congress in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

Cornyn went on: “In Texas, for example, my state spent close to a third of its budget on Medicaid last year, a third of all state spending.”

Is that a fact? Gardner Selby of the PolitiFact Texas fact-checking team has the answer.

Hear how Cornyn’s claim scored in the player above.